BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The Indiana men's tennis team opens the 2005 fall season at the Cincinnati Collegiate Invitational. The invite is slated for Sept. 23-25 at the ATP Tennis Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. The teams competing at the event include Brown, Wake Forest, Michigan State and Louisville. The invitational will include a series of round robin competitions between teams in both singles and doubles.

Scouting the Invitational
The four opposing teams finished the season ranked among the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's top 75. Three of the four squads qualified for the NCAA Tournament in 2004-05. The tournament field includes No. 40 Louisville, No. 43 Wake Forest, No. 53 Michigan State and No. 54 Brown.

Louisville, Wake Forest and Brown made the NCAA Tournament a season ago with the Cardinals and Demon Deacons advancing to the second round. Brown earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament by virtue of its Ivy League championship.

The Hoosiers are no strangers to both Michigan State and Louisville. IU faced both squads a season ago. In 2004-05, Indiana defeated then-No. 26 Louisville, 5-2, and finished the regular season with a 6-1 victory over the Spartans.

The Cincinnati Collegiate Invitational field includes a number of players ranked among the preseason top 125 in singles and top 60 in doubles. Todd Paul of Wake Forest is the top-seeded singles player heading into the tournament at No. 33. Damar Johnson (No. 38) of Louisville, Slarko Radman (No. 117) of Louisville, Dan Hanegby (No. 60) of Brown, Andrew Hammar (No. 70) of Wake Forest and Brett Ross (No. 91) of Wake Forest are listed in the preseason ITA top 125 in singles. A quartet of doubles teams, including the Hoosiers' senior duo of John Stone and Dmytro Ishtuganov, are among the preseason ITA doubles rankings. Stone and Ishtuganov begin the year ranked No. 43 in the ITA poll. Jakob Gustafsson and Jeremy Clark of Louisville are the highest ranked doubles team at No. 16. Ross and Paul of Wake Forest and Johnson and Radman of Louisville are ranked No. 36 and No. 60, respectively.

Cincinnati Tie
Sophomore Michael McCarthy will get the chance to play a little closer to home. McCarthy returns to his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he graduated from Indian Hills High School. He was the Ohio and Cincinnati Player of the Year on two occasions during his high school campaign. He finished his career at Indian Hills with a 136-7 four-year record, including a 38-0 mark as a senior.

In his first season as a Hoosier, McCarthy finished with a 15-13 record, playing primarily at the No. 4 position. He also amassed a 15-11 doubles slate during his rookie season. McCarthy opened his Hoosier career by winning the opening eight matches of the 2004 fall season. During the spring season, McCarthy was hampered by an arm injury.

20-Win Players
Junior David Bubenicek and senior Dmytro Ishtuganov each won more than 20 matches in singles and doubles, respectively, in 2004-05. Bubenicek moved his way up the lineup throughout his sophomore campaign before finally settling at the No. 3 singles position. The ITA All-Academic Team honoree finished the year with a 21-7 singles mark, including a 17-4 dual meet mark. He also was 7-3 in the Big Ten Conference.

Ishtuganov has been one of the top Hoosier doubles players over the past two seasons. He won over 20 matches in each season, including a 20-8 mark in 2004-05. Teaming with then-senior Jakub Praibis, the duo played primarily at the No. 2 position amassing a 17-6 dual match mark with a 6-4 Big Ten ledger.

Ranked Players
The tandem of seniors John Stone and Dmytro Ishtuganov is ranked 43rd in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Preseason Doubles Rankings. The rankings were released on Sept. 6 and included the top-125 singles players rankings and top-60 doubles team rankings.

Both Stone and Ishtuganov were members of doubles teams that were ranked in the ITA weekly polls a season ago. Stone teamed with Ryan Recht at the No. 1 doubles position and was ranked 56th on March 22, 2005. Ishtuganov teamed with Jakub Praibis at the No. 2 doubles position and moved into 54th in the nation on Feb. 22, 2005. Stone and Recht were also ranked 11th in the Midwest Region at the end of the 2005 season.

In his previous two seasons at Indiana, Ishtuganov has won 42 doubles matches. Playing primarily at the No. 2 position, the Kiev, Ukraine, native went 22-7 in 2003-04 and 20-8 in 2004-05.

Over the last two years, Stone has played almost exclusively at the No. 1 doubles spot. As a sophomore and junior, the Greenwood, Ind., product won 15 matches each season in doubles. During his three-year career, Stone is 46-32 when teamed with a partner.

Freshmen Join the Fold
The Hoosiers welcome a pair of freshmen to the fold for the 2005-06 season. Peter Antons (Duxbury, Mass./Duxbury) and Mario Gonzalez (Madrid, Spain/International College of Spain) join seven Hoosier returners for the upcoming season.

Antons was ranked eighth in the New England region and as high as 185th in the country by the USTA in the 18-and-under division. At the USTA New England Junior Sectional Championships, he teamed with Luke Rassow-Kantor of Westport, Conn., to claim the doubles championship. Antons also won the consolation singles title at the event. Antons excelled in the classroom as well as on the court in high school. He was named All-Scholastic by the Boston Globe, Duxbury Clipper and Patriot Ledger.

Gonzalez comes to Indiana with a lot of clay court experience in Spain. The 6-4, 174-pound player was a semifinalist in the 2005 Los Rozas el Abojon Tournament (Madrid, Spain) and a quarterfinalist in the Villanueve de la Canada (Madrid, Spain). He is an athlete who played both tennis and soccer at the International College of Spain.

Senior Leaders
Indiana returns a trio of senior leaders this season in Neil Kenner, Dmytro Ishtuganov and John Stone. All three have enjoyed success during their Hoosier careers and are expected to make a jump in the line up during the 2005-06 season. Indiana must replace the graduation of its top two singles players from a season ago.

Kenner saw the most action at No. 3 for the Hoosiers last season. He finished the year with an 11-9 mark overall, including an 8-8 record in dual matches.

Ishtuganov has been a vital part of the Hoosiers' doubles contingent over the past two seasons. He has won 20-plus matches in doubles in 2003-04 and 2004-05. He played up and down the line up last season, making a stop at every singles position with the exception of No. 1. He finished with a 6-3 dual match record in winning 12 singles matches.

Stone has been a fixture in the Hoosier line up since his freshman season. The Greenwood, Ind., native has amassed 46 doubles victories over his three-year career, playing primarily at the No. 1 position. In 2004-05, Stone had an exceptional spring in singles, going 14-3 in dual matches and finishing the year with a 17-5 overall record.